THE MISSING LAST 10 MINUTES TO SEASON 5 FINALE THAT THEY FORGOT TO AIR
by woolenslipper
Summary: I like to think that the producers simply forgot to air these last ten minutes rather than intentionally being cruel to viewers.


**Dear Readers, I hated the season finale (and I only watched part of it), thought it was shameful the way producers handled things, and felt betrayed by the Hallmark Channel which prides itself on romantic feel-good shows. I can no longer bring myself to watch the old episodes and will not be watching season 6. Like one of my reviewers wrote, the killing of Jack ruined the series for me. There were other ways to handle the situation, such as re-casting, or simply having the character of Jack filmed from far-away or his face obscured in a kiss, or having him always in another room, upstairs, the livery, etc, or having him on rounds sometimes. There was no reason to kill the character. My reaction, in addition to writing some emails, was to add the next ten minutes to the season finale. I'd like to believe that they simply forgot to air it.**

 **THE MISSING LAST TEN MINUTES TO THE SEASON 5 FINALE THAT THEY FORGOT TO AIR**

"How's she doing?" Lee asked as he walked out his front door and saw Abigail coming out of the house next door. The morning fog still hung in the air making the town of Hope Valley seem eerily quiet and unnatural.

"She cancelled classes for the day. She can't bring herself to get out of bed," Abigail answered with a sad sigh as she climbed down the wooden steps of the row house.

"The pregnancy?" Lee asked. The news of Elizabeth's pregnancy had spread quickly through the town yesterday in a failed attempt to lift the spirits of everyone.

Abigail shook her head. "No, grief."

"I thought she was doing okay," Lee questioned as the two began walking towards the center of town. "She taught class yesterday."

"It's only been a few weeks. She can only hold it together for a couple hours at a time until she falls apart."

Lee and Abigail continued walking in step with each other but they were quiet in their own thoughts. When they had gotten notice of Jack's death, Abigail had felt like she had lost a son, and Lee had felt like he had lost a brother. They could barely stand to see Elizabeth in her own overwhelming sadness.

No amount of wooden signs or quilts or even the welcoming news of a pregnancy, could lift her from her grief. Anyone who thought so was an idiot.

* * *

More than a hundred miles away, Mrs. Jenilu Marner sat down at the beside of the heavily bandaged man in the sterile room in the stately brick building at 246 High Street and picked up his hand.

"The swelling's gone down and you've taken off the splint", she remarked to the nurse who was moving away a wash basin.

After weeks of visiting room 10B, she knew the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies. She knew them all. The only thing she didn't know was when the man in the bed would wake up. And what would happen when he did. She and her husband had married young and, in hind-sight, it probably hadn't been a good idea. While they thought they had been in love, there had been too many disagreements in their short marriage, too many times when they wondered if they had made a mistake in marrying, too many months apart while he decided what career he should follow. She wondered if she even knew her husband. She felt no connection to the man in the hospital bed.

"You can probably take off his wedding ring now that his hand's not so swollen. For safe keeping," the nurse explained. "You can give it back to him when he's released."

The twenty-two-year-old woman looked at the nurse in surprise. "So you think he'll be coming home soon?"

"I'm not sure. But he was mumbling some more earlier today. That's a good sign."

"What did he say?" Jenilu asked as she moved to take off his ring.

The nurse suddenly realized that she shouldn't have said anything and she pretended to not have heard the woman's question as she made her way out of the room.

* * *

Ten minutes later, the staff members stood outside Room 10B and looked at each other in bewilderment.

Jenilu was actually handling the situation better than any of them. She wiped away a few tears and walked away from the hospital for the last time. She wouldn't be visiting the patient any more.

The doctor stared at the chart in his hand and then through the open door at the man lying unconscious in the metal hospital bed before asking the question they were all thinking.

"If that isn't her husband, who the hell is he?"

* * *

On the outskirts of Hope Valley, the dirt made a muffled thudding sound as it landed after being tossed by the men with shovels.

When Bill Avery had received the telegram, he had waited until dark and then taken Lee Coulter and Henry Gowen with him. He had asked Lee to help him because he trusted the lumber man to remain quiet and not tell anyone what they were doing – not even his nosy wife, Rosemary. Remarkably, he had taken Henry for the same reasons; he could trust him not to tell anyone what they were doing under cover of darkness.

"This is disgusting," Lee remarked as his shovel finally hit the hard coffin. "Are you sure this is a possibility? Because I don't want to see a body that's been decaying for weeks. And if you're wrong, we're going to hell for doing this. I will never forgive myself for doing this to Jack."

"I'm not going to tell her about the telegram until we know more," Bill replied firmly.

The former Mountie investigator jumped down into the freshly dug hole and wiped away dirt from the coffin lid. "Pass me the crowbar."

"I've seen decaying bodies", Henry remarked in a voice devoid of emotion. "After the coal mine explosion. It took months to get every body out of that hell-hole."

"We don't need to see the body. Just the left hand," Bill replied.

* * *

"Get away from there or I'll shoot!" the female voice forcefully demanded through the night air, putting a stop to the men's attempt at further disturbing the grave.

The startled threesome immediately ceased prying off the lid and turned in surprise to look at Elizabeth. She was sitting on Jack's horse, which was actually now her horse, thirty feet away from them. His rifle in her arms. The barrel pointed at them.

They had been so busy concentrating on the task at hand that they hadn't seen her approach in the moonlight.

"Back away from my husband's grave. NOW!"

"Don't shoot, Elizabeth! It's me Bill! I'm here with Lee and Henry."

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth asked in confusion as she lowered her weapon. She kicked the horse gently and the animal moved forward. Unable to sleep, she had made her way to the grave. Just as she had last night when the rest of the town was sleeping. She had never expected to encounter anyone here.

"Stay there, Elizabeth," Bill ordered. "I don't want you coming close."

"What are you doing? Why are you digging at his grave?" she asked in hurt bewilderment as she ignored the man's order and continued moving closer.

Bill threw down his crowbar and hurried towards her, keeping her from getting within ten feet.

"Can you just go back to town? I'll explain later."

"No," she objected. "What is going on? You're disturbing his grave," she said distraughtly as she noticed the piles of dirt.

Bill took a deep sigh and looked at the other men. Lee simply nodded.

"Tell her," Henry ordered. "She needs to know."

"Get down from the horse", Bill suggested in defeat. He had wanted to keep the possibility from Elizabeth until he knew if he was right. But it was too late for that now that she had stumbled upon them.

Taking Elizabeth's hands in his own, Bill spoke as gently and slowly as possible. Choosing his words carefully.

"Remember in the landslide, two Mounties were killed and several Mounties were injured?"

Elizabeth nodded and wondered why Bill was bringing up the most painful incident in her life.

"Two of them were hit by rocks in the skull and face, causing serious damage. Their cheekbones were crushed and . . .well, they were apparently pretty messed up. That's why Jack had a closed coffin."

Tears started falling from Elizabeth's eyes, and she felt her knees buckling. She was never going to get used to the idea that Jack had died.

"I'm sorry, but I have to talk to you about this," Bill told her.

"Jack and one of the other men were identified by some of the new trainees. The scene was chaotic with the injured men and the bodies. One of the seriously injured men has been in a coma since the landslide. In a hospital. Over the last few days, he's been mumbling a few times. His voice is apparently very weak and hoarse and at first, no one could figure out the word he was saying. . . . He had internal injuries. His left hand was partially crushed and then swelled up."

"I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?" Elizabeth sobbed.

"Yesterday, they finally managed to take off his wedding ring. They took it off for safekeeping."

"He was married too?" Elizabeth's voice was filled with grief as she thought of Jack. She leaned against Lee who had approached and put his arm around her.

"The man's ring was inscribed with part of a quote."

Bill paused but Elizabeth didn't seem to have heard him as she drowned in her sorrow.

"Love is patient," he finally said.

"That's what Jack's ring said," she blubbered between her tears.

"I know," Bill replied. "I had the rings before the wedding."

A puzzled Elizabeth pulled her hands from Bill's and wiped her eyes. "I don't understand. Why would that other Mountie be wearing Jack's ring?"

"The other Mountie _wouldn't_ be wearing Jack's ring," Bill said slowly. Wondering if Elizabeth was too distraught to understand what he was trying to say.

"I don't understand," Elizbeth said again. "Why are you telling me that someone else had the same engraving that Jack did? What does it matter?"

"Because the other Mountie's wife said her husband's ring wasn't engraved with a quote. It was engraved with her initials."

Bill hesitated before continuing. "And her name isn't Elizabeth. . . . . The name the man in the bed has been mumbling."

Elizabeth's tears stopped abruptly.

She stared at Bill in the moonlight. A stunned Elizabeth simply stared at him with wide eyes.

Her heart began to beat a little faster while the men stood silent.

For the first time since that doomed night, she felt the tiniest possibility of true hope that just maybe she could be happy again. This is what she had needed. Not signs commemorating her husband. Not quilts which could never replace his warm body in her bed. Not even the possibility of a baby could erase her pain.

But this. . . Oh, God, this could let her climb out from the terrible black hole her life had become, she thought as she looked to the grave.

* * *

Elizabeth had refused to go back to town but had remained at the grave-site while the coffin was pried open. She averted her gaze as Bill reached inside and pulled the ring off the left hand of the corpse.

The three grave robbers and Elizabeth stood in the chilly night air and anxiously looked at the ring in the light of their lanterns.

The men weren't sure if it was the cold air, the late night hour, Elizabeth's new pregnancy, or the shock of seeing the unfamiliar initials J.M. engraved in the dead man's ring.

They were just happy they caught Elizabeth when she fainted.

* * *

"Mrs. Thornton, we're still not sure if he's your husband. Two Mounties were killed in the landslide. This patient could be other man who was declared dead," the doctor explained as he walked Elizabeth down the corridor to room near the nurses' station. He thought that the woman looked frazzled and with good reason. She had traveled more than a hundred miles and come directly from the train station.

"He was wearing Jack's ring," she said with determination as she tightly clutched the gold band which the doctor had handed to her moments earlier. "That means he's Jack."

"I understand that's what you're hoping, Ma'am, but it's a very common romantic phrase. Your husband may not be the only one with it engraved in his ring. We're still trying to get in touch with the other Mountie's wife but she's gone off to visit family. Please try not to get your hopes up too much. We don't want another misidentification."

Elizabeth had been sure that she'd be able to recognize Jack when she finally was given a chance to see him, but she was shocked when she saw the figure laying motionless in the sterile bed.

One side of the man's skull and face were covered in bandages. The unbandaged side had a red six-inch scar across the cheek with black stitches still visible. His cheek was sunken in, given him a gaunt appearance. He would never look quite the same as he had before the accident.

"Jack" she said quietly as she approached him.

She picked up his hand and began to silently weep. "Jack, it's me, Elizabeth."

"Ma'am. Are you sure it's him?" one of the nurses sympathetically asked. The woman in her starched white uniform stood across the bedside and looked sadly at Elizabeth. The nurse had already dealt with one crying woman who had left the room when she realized that after weeks of holding the patient's hand, he was not her husband.

"His face is still swollen and damaged and you're only seeing part of it. Does he have any identifying marks?" the nurse inquired.

At first, Elizabeth shook her head.

"His beautiful blue eyes. His dimples," she remarked as she looked at his damaged face and only saw what she knew in her heart.

His eyes and his dimples were the only identifying marks she could think of, and with his eyes closed and his unconscious state, neither was helpful at the moment.

Even if she used her fingers to open the eyelids of the uncovered eye, Elizabeth doubted that the medical personnel would take his eye color – no matter how beautiful – as concrete evidence of identification.

"His scar!" she suddenly said. "On his knee."

The two nurses and doctor looked curiously at each other and then at Elizabeth who seemed to be in a trance as a memory came back to her.

"A whip-stitch would do," she said in a barely audible dazed voice as she gazed at Jack. "I've sewn before. Close to the bone. You should see the bear."

"Ma'am, are you okay?"

"Check his knees!" she ordered irritably. This man was her husband. She knew it. Love was patient, but she had waited long enough.

The doctor nodded to the nurses, who each went to a side of the bed and lifted the bedsheet.

"Nothing on this one", the younger of the nurses said in disappointment. She had only just met the woman standing near her but she already liked her and felt the love she must have had for her husband.

"This one has a scar!" the other nurse exclaimed as she looked at the faint line on Jack's skin.

Elizabeth moved away from Jack's head and stared at the scar on his knee. She knew this scar. She had seen it five years earlier as the couple – then just friends- had sat in the Cafe and Jack had teased her about sewing.

She had seen it just a few months ago on their honeymoon when they had learned each other's bodies. She had kissed this scar. She had run her finger gently on this scar.

She had made love to Jack before touching this scar and again after touching this scar.

The hoarse quiet voice broke the stunned silence in the room. It was faint but there was no mistaking what the patient had said.

Elizabeth jerked her gaze from his left knee to his face.

"Elizabeth," Jack mumbled again.

* * *

An hour later, the doctor stopped outside Room 10B and peeked inside. Although he normally would have forbidden a visiting family member from sleeping in a hospital bed with a patient, he had made an exception in this case.

The doctor decided to have another bed moved into the room later so that the couple could sleep more comfortably. Although, if he knew the couple, it would have been obvious to him that they slept most comfortably in each other's arms, even if they were trying to fit into one single bed.

He would also have to ignore the rules about visiting hours. It was very apparent to him that Mrs. Thornton would not be leaving her husband's side until the man was released to go home in a few weeks.

As the doctor turned and walked away, he smiled. Sometimes in life two people deserve, and are lucky enough, to live happily ever after. It was clear that this was such a couple.


End file.
